Ebola virus outbreak in Guinea kills at least 59 people

A mysterious disease that has killed up to 59 people in Guinea is the haemorrhagic fever Ebola, officials in the West African country have confirmed.

Experts had been unable to identify the disease but scientists studying samples in the French city of Lyon confirmed it was Ebola, the Guinean health ministry said.

Symptoms of the Ebola virus include fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and bleeding with a fatality rate of up to 90 per cent.

"The Ebola fever epidemic raging in southern Guinea since February 9 has left at least 59 dead out of 80 cases identified by our services on the ground," said Dr Sakoba Keita, who heads the epidemics prevention division at Guinea's health ministry.

"We are overwhelmed in the field, we are fighting against this epidemic with all the means we have at our disposal with the help of our partners but it is difficult. But we will get there," he said.

Ebola has never before been recorded in Guinea.

World Health Organisation officials said that cases showing similar symptoms had also been reported in an area of Sierra Leone near the border with Guinea.

Sierra Leone's chief medical officer, Dr Brima Kargbo, said authorities were investigating the case of a 14-year-old boy who died in the town of Buedu in the eastern Kailahun District.

The boy had travelled to Guinea to attend the funeral of one of the outbreak's earlier victims.

Mr Kargbo said a medical team had been sent to Buedu to test those who came into contact with the boy before his death.

The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement it would strengthen its team of 24 doctors, nurses and experts in hygiene and sanitation already in Guinea.

It is also flying in 33 tonnes of medicines and equipment and is setting up isolation units in the three affected towns in Guinea.

"These structures are essential to prevent the spread of the disease, which is highly contagious," MSF tropical medicine adviser Esther Sterk said.

Ebola, one of the world's most virulent diseases, was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1976 and the country has since had eight outbreaks.

The most recent epidemic in the DRC infected 62 people and left 34 dead between May and November 2012, according to the country's health ministry.

Features

Former treasurer Wayne Swan says that real private sector wages have grown by just 1 per cent under the Abbott and Turnbull governments, which he says equates to only one year of growth under the previous Labor government.